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Amsterdam review – turn of the screwball in David O Russell’s starry muddle

Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington bring laughs to a exhaustingly wacky riff on a real-life fascist conspiracy in 1930s New York

T here’s usually a no more heart-sinking way of starting a movie than with the larky, slippery announcement: “Based on a true story – mostly!” or “What follows is all accurate – kinda!” It usually means the film will fall between the two stools marked “creatively interesting” and “factually informative”. However, David O Russell begins his elaborate screwball mystery Amsterdam by declaring: “A lot of this actually happened.” He means the film is a wacky riff on the little-known 1933 “White House putsch” in which a cabal of wealthy American businessmen conspired to overthrow President Franklin D Roosevelt, hoping to dupe a retired major general called Smedley Butler into leading their fascist veterans’ organisation. (Maybe the nearest British equivalent was Lord Mountbatten being approached in 1968 by a group of establishment grandees to unseat Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.)

Amsterdam imagines three innocent veterans being drawn into these creepy shenanigans. Christian Bale plays Burt Berendsen, a disabled ex-soldier who lost an eye in the first world war; after The Big Short, this is Bale’s second “glass eye” role. Burt is a doctor in New York, supplying pain medication and prosthetic limbs to fellow veterans on a pro bono basis. Burt’s army pal Harold Woodman (John David Washington) is now a qualified lawyer, and helping him to run a morale-boosting ex-servicemen’s gala dinner. And the two men’s soulmate is the mercurial and brilliant Valerie Voze, played by Margot Robbie, who in the first world war was a volunteer nurse and dadaist artist who saved all the shrapnel she dug out of soldiers’ shattered bodies to create bizarre objet trouvé artworks.

Valerie took Burt and Harold for a glorious bohemian retreat in Amsterdam where they did nothing but carouse, but then she mysteriously vanished. And now back in New York in 1933, Burt and Harold witness the bizarre death of a prominent US general’s daughter, and find themselves in the frame for murder; they need the help of another top soldier, General Gil Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro), and Valerie dramatically reappears.

There are some great supporting turns here, which periodically break the surface of this film’s soupy strangeness. Rami Malek is very funny as Valerie’s wealthy, silken-voiced brother Tom, always charming and insinuating. Mike Myers is amusing as MI6 operative Paul Canterbury, who for no good reason in one scene does Wilson, Keppel and Betty’s “sand dance” , surely the first time this has been seen in the cinema since the opening scene to Julien Temple’s Absolute Beginners. Andrea Riseborough is elegant and stylish as Burt’s snobbish wife Beatrice, and Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola get laughs as two lumpen cops.

As for the leads, the best is John David Washington, who pursues a policy alien to his costars: less is more. His performance is cool, unruffled and his address to the camera is very seductively underplayed. Bale and Robbie are doing bigger and broader comedy, and often there isn’t quite the material in the script to back it up – although Bale has a good bit when Burt takes a new, state-of-the-art morphine painkiller via eyedrops, starts talking about how unreliable these things are and then suddenly interrupts himself: “Oh that’s fast!”

But there is something weirdly heavy and foggy in Amsterdam that feels like it’s working against the lightness and nimbleness needed for a caper. It’s the reality of the history, which the movie makes explicit in the closing credits: the grim fact of the US’s proto-fascism understandably means that the comedy isn’t going to be too lighthearted, although the obscurity of this story means that isn’t immediately clear. Well, there are some very good performances, and Washington has taken another step towards A-lister greatness.

• Christian Bale
• Margot Robbie
• John David Washington
• David O Russell
• Period and historical films

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Amsterdam film review — history goes haywire in a starry screwball lark

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‘Amsterdam’ Review: Three Amigos Try to Save America in David O. Russell’s Ungainly Period Dramedy

Truth is relative as Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie stumble upon a plot to overturn democracy in this overstuffed social satire from the director of 'American Hustle.'

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The film centers on a friendship between three Americans drawn into an elaborate political intrigue. The trio were never happier than when they lived together in Amsterdam after the Great War. Encouraged to enlist (and perchance to die) by his high-society in-laws, Dr. Burt Berendsen ( Christian Bale ) lost an eye and half his face in conflict, but gained a lifelong amigo in Harold Woodman ( John David Washington ), a Black soldier who — and this is among the film’s “this really happened” details — was obliged to fight in French uniform since American troops refused to integrate.

Valerie collects shrapnel from her patients, but instead of discarding these fragments, she keeps the twisted metal for artistic projects: teapots made of bomb parts and surrealist photo collages of the kind that Man Ray and Grete Stern produced in the 1930s. Burt’s also something of a sculptor — of the medical arts — rebuilding the faces of other disfigured veterans (while testing experimental painkillers on himself). For a brief, glorious moment in Amsterdam, the friends are spared the stresses of their lives — and wife (Andrea Riseborough), in Burt’s case — back in America, their shenanigans somehow sponsored by two ornithophile spies (Michael Shannon and Mike Myers, the latter heavily disguised and accented), who promise, “We’ll come a-calling at some point in the future.”

Alas, the trio’s carefree days of dancing the Charleston among the Dutch are numbered — and just as well, since this cutesy segment of the story feels overly indebted to Wes Anderson, and not in a good way (e.g., inventing a nonsense song around the French word that makes everyone laugh: “pamplemousse”). Most of the film takes place 15 years later, in New York (New Amsterdam?) in late 1933, as Burt and Harold agree to investigate the suspicious death of the superior officer who introduced them (Ed Begley Jr.), only to be framed for murder in the process. While the case doesn’t seem to be of terribly pressing urgency to the police (as detectives, stars Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola deliver broad character-actor performances), the pair are determined to clear their names, which brings them back in contact with Valerie.

Russell cooks up plenty of high-end kookiness (which is to say, comedic situations set in the hallways and drawing rooms of polite-society houses, like something out of a Howard Hawks or Ernst Lubitsch classic, as opposed to flat-out farce), but through it all, the bonds between these three characters are meant to be the thing that keeps us invested. Russell has miscalculated something there, however, since the 15-year separation between the friends is resolved before they even have time to miss one another in the movie, and whatever chemistry existed between Harold and Valerie’s characters never quite manifests on-screen.

Russell is right to remind Americans of this shameful moment in their past (skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers), as history books tend to downplay the amount of stateside support that Mussolini and Hitler had in the lead-up to World War II. In his novel “The Plot Against America” (adapted for HBO around the same time “Amsterdam” was filming), Philip Roth imagines an alternate reality in which Franklin D. Roosevelt was defeated by a Nazi-sympathizing Charles Lindbergh. Here, Russell spotlights more dastardly plans to actually remove the president from office. Production designer Judy Becker (who does terrific work on the film’s myriad period locations) drew inspiration from 1930s rallies, like the one Marshall Curry documented in his Oscar-nominated doc short “A Night at the Garden,” right down to the George Washington portrait hanging behind the dais.

Russell’s truth-will-out, think-for-yourself political message is ultimately what makes “Amsterdam” appealing, though the film is being marketed largely on the popular appeal of its cast. That’s a risky prospect for such an expensive picture, considering that hardly any of the stars delivers the thing that fans love most about their personas — except perhaps Chris Rock, who gets to crack wise about white supremacy. It’s beautifully shot by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, whose swooning mix of Steadicam and handheld techniques lent an almost godlike grandeur to recent films by Terrence Malick and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, though that fluid style combines rather oddly with Russell’s more erratic comedic sensibilities.

The result has all the red flags of a flop, but takes a strong enough anti-establishment stand — and does so with wit and originality — to earn a cult following. There’s too much ambition here to write the movie off, even if “Amsterdam,” like the history it depicts, winds up taking years to be rediscovered and understood.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, Sept. 19, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 134 MIN.

• Production: A 20th Century Studios release of a Regency Enterprises presentation of a New Regency, Dreamcrew Entertainment, Keep Your Head, Corazon Camera production. Producers: Arnon Milchan, Matthew Budman, Anthony Katagas, David O. Russell, Christian Bale. Executive producers: Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaefer, Sam Hanson, Drake, Adel "Future" Nur. Co-producer: Tracey Landon.
• Crew: Director, writer: David O. Russell. Camera: Emmanuel Lubezki. Editor: Jay Cassidy. Music: Daniel Pemberton.
• With: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Alessandro Nivola, Andrea Riseborough, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldaña, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro.

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Simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished, frantic and meandering, “Amsterdam” is one big, star-studded, hot mess of a movie.

Christian Bale , Margot Robbie , John David Washington , Robert De Niro , Anya Taylor-Joy , Rami Malek , Chris Rock , Michael Shannon , Zoe Saldana , Alessandro Nivola and many more major names: How can you amass this cast and go so wrong? Simply putting them in a room and watching them chit-chat for two-plus hours—or say nothing at all, for that matter—would have been infinitely more interesting. Alas, David O. Russell has concocted all manner of adventures and detours, wacky hijinks, and elaborate asides to occupy his actors, none of which is nearly as clever or charming as he seems to think.

Over and over again, I asked myself as I was watching “Amsterdam”: What is this movie about? Where are we going with this? I’d have to stop and find my bearings: What exactly is happening now? And not in a thrilling, stimulating way, as in “ Memento ,” for example, or “ Cats .” It’s all a dizzying piffle—until it stops dead in its tracks and forces several of its stars to make lengthy speeches elucidating the points Russell himself did not make over the previous two rambling hours. The grand finale gives us some interminable, treacly narration, explaining the importance of love and kindness over the film's images of bohemian rhapsody we’d just seen not too long ago. 

As is the case in so many of the writer/director’s other movies, we have the sensation as we’re watching that anything could happen at any moment. He typically employs such verve in his camerawork and takes such ambitious tonal swings that you wonder in amazement how he manages to keep it all cohesive and intact. This time, he doesn’t. Because “Amsterdam” lacks the compelling visual language of “ Three Kings ” or “ American Hustle ,” for instance, and it lacks characters with heart-on-their-sleeve humanity like he shows us in “ The Fighter ” or “ Silver Linings Playbook .” Despite the prodigious talent on display here, not a single figure on screen feels like a real person. Each is a collection of idiosyncrasies, some more intriguing than others.

To put it in the simplest terms possible, Bale and Washington play longtime best friends suspected of a murder they didn’t commit. While trying to uncover the truth about what’s going on, they stumble upon an even larger and more sinister plot. Russell’s script jumps around in time from 1933 New York to 1918 Amsterdam and back again, but he’s using this time frame—and the fascist ideologies that rose to prominence then—to make a statement about what’s been going on the past several years in right-wing American politics. Ultimately, he hammers us over the head with this point. But first, whimsy.

Bale’s Burt Berendsen is a folksy doctor with a glass eye that keeps falling out. He’s hooked on his own homemade pain meds, which cause him to collapse to the ground—which also causes his eye to fall out. Bale is doing intense shtick throughout; he is committed to the bit. Washington’s Harold Woodman served with him in the same racially mixed Army battalion in France during WWI; he’s now an attorney, and the more levelheaded of the two. When their beloved general dies suspiciously, his daughter (a distractingly stiff Taylor Swift ) asks them to investigate.

But soon, they’re on the run, inspiring a flashback to how they met in the first place. This is actually the most entertaining part of the film. Russell luxuriates in the duo’s wistful memories of their post-war years in Amsterdam with Robbie’s Valerie Voze, the nurse who cared for them when they were injured and quickly became their co-conspirator in all kinds of boozy escapades. The celebrated cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki , a multiple Oscar winner for his work with Alfonso Cuaron (“ Gravity ”) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“ Birdman ,” “ The Revenant ”), eases up on the sepia tones that often feel so smothering in an effort to capture a feeling of nostalgia. There’s real life and joy to these sequences in Amsterdam that’s missing elsewhere. Robbie, a brunette for a change, looks impossibly luminous—but her character is also a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a secretly wealthy heiress who turns bullet shrapnel into art. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor for the healing presence she provides in Burt and Harold’s lives.

That’s what’s so frustrating about “Amsterdam”: It’ll offer a scene or an interaction or a performance here or there that’s legitimately entertaining and maybe comes close to hitting the mark Russell is trying to hit. Several duos and subplots along the way might have made for a more interesting movie than the one we got: Malek and Taylor-Joy as Valerie’s snobby, striving brother and sister-in-law, for example, are a bizarre hoot. (And here’s a great place to stop and mention the spectacular costume design, the work of J.R. Hawbaker and the legendary Albert Wolsky . The period detail is varied and vivid, but the dresses Taylor-Joy wears, all in bold shades of red, are especially inspired.) Nivola and Matthias Schoenaerts as mismatched cops who can’t stand each other can be amusing, and it seems like they’re really trying to infuse their characters with traits and motivations beyond what’s on the page. Shannon and Mike Myers as a pair of spies are good for a goofy laugh or two, nothing more.

But despite these sporadic moments of enjoyment, “Amsterdam” is ultimately so convoluted and tedious that it obliterates such glimmers of goodwill. It’s so weighed down by its overlong running time and self-indulgent sense of importance that its core message about the simple need for human decency feels like a cynical afterthought. And whispering the word “Amsterdam” throughout, as several of the characters do, doesn’t even begin to cast the magic spell it seeks to conjure.

Now playing in theaters. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Amsterdam (2022)

Rated R for brief violence and bloody images.

127 minutes

Christian Bale as Burt Berendsen

Margot Robbie as Valerie Voze

John David Washington as Harold Woodman

Robert De Niro as General Gil Dillenbeck

Anya Taylor-Joy as Libby Voze

Rami Malek as Tom Voze

Chris Rock as Milton King

Zoe Saldaña as Irma St. Clair

Mike Myers as Paul Canterbury

Michael Shannon as Henry Norcross

Timothy Olyphant as Taron Milfax

Andrea Riseborough as Beatrice Vandenheuvel

Taylor Swift as Liz Meekins

Matthias Schoenaerts as Detective Lem Getweiler

Alessandro Nivola as Detective Hiltz

Ed Begley Jr. as General Bill Meekins

• David O. Russell

Cinematographer

• Emmanuel Lubezki
• Jay Cassidy
• Daniel Pemberton

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‘Amsterdam’: Review

By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2022-09-28T02:00:00+01:00

Christian Bale and Margot Robbie head an A-list cast in David O. Russell’s overstuffed period murder mystery

Source: Walt Disney Studios

‘Amsterdam’

Dir/scr: David O. Russell. US. 2022. 134mins

David O. Russell’s films burst at the seams, his characters barely able to contain their big dreams and even bigger personalities. But such unbridled energy requires a careful execution, lest the proceedings become exhausting rather than exuberant; a distinction Amsterdam fails to recognise. Although stuffed with ambition and the occasionally arresting moment, this 1930s mystery flaunts a freewheeling spirit that far outpaces its convoluted story and dramatically thin protagonists. The picture couldn’t look better thanks to its ace period detail and Emmanuel Lubezki’s enrapturing photography, but the writer-director’s usual emotional maximalism is both cranked up too high and not nearly affecting enough. 

What once felt effortless in Russell’s orchestrated mayhem here seems strained

Opening on October 7 in multiple territories including the UK and US (following IMAX preview screenings in the US on September 27), Russell’s first feature since 2015’s Joy boasts an array of award-winning stars including Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek and Robert De Niro. In its flamboyance and sprawling scope, Amsterdam resembles multiple-Oscar-nominee American Hustle , a sizeable hit ($251 million worldwide) which, similarly, was loosely based on actual events. The possibility of Russell’s latest duplicating that success seems unlikely, however, with reviews likely less than glowing.

In 1933 New York, doctor Burt (Bale) and lawyer Harold (Washington) are longtime best friends who met in France while fighting in the same regiment during World War I. But when their aged commanding officer Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.) is found dead — and the autopsy suggests he was murdered — Burt and Harold determine to get to the bottom of it. Their investigation will lead to them reuniting with Valerie (Robbie), a nurse who patched them up in the Great War, fell in love with Harold and then disappeared.

Touching on everything from fascism to racism, Amsterdam looks to the past to tell a story about present-day woes, plunging our three heroes into a tale full of intrigue, romance and dark comedy. (Because of Burt’s severe battlefield injuries he now requires a glass eye, which tends to fall out at the most inopportune times.) But Russell drapes his film’s sober concerns in stylish looks, accentuated by J.R. Hawbaker and Albert Wolsky’s glamorous costumes and Judy Becker’s rich production design. This is just one way that Amsterdam is drunk on its own showmanship, confidently shifting between time periods, sporting voiceover from two different characters, and every once in a while slowing down the feverish forward momentum to focus on Harold and Valerie’s blossoming attraction. (Lubezki’s floating camera is especially useful for the love story, lending a little fairytale magic.)

Unfortunately, Amsterdam ’s boisterous panache can only take Russell and his spirited actors so far. The bond between Burt and Harold always feels superficial, and despite Robbie’s ultra-chic portrayal of this kindly nurse who’s also an artist suffering from a touch of vertigo, she can’t overcome a character loaded down with quirks. In fact, many in the massive ensemble seem to have been encouraged to give slightly exaggerated, self-consciously “old-timey” performances. Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy play an eccentric married couple with an unexpected connection to Valerie, while Andrea Riseborough is frustratingly broad as Burt’s snooty, upperclass wife. With the exception of a nicely restrained De Niro, portraying a somber general who emerges as the film’s moral compass, the supporting cast is “colourful” without being particularly memorable.

That said, Amsterdam can sometimes be breezy fun, the story’s unpredictability and the main characters’ openhearted desire to find their place in the world — a familiar trait in Russell protagonists — intermittently compelling. And although Bale often goes to extremes when working with the director, donning outrageous wigs while depicting foolhardy souls, he locates in Burt a man who was physically (and psychically) shattered by the war, yet refuses to let go of his optimism about people. There’s a winning sweetness and vulnerability to the role that Amsterdam ’s overly busy and increasingly complicated plotting can’t quite accommodate for. Instead, Burt and his friends will go down a conspiracy-laden rabbit hole while investigating Meekins’ killing that results in a heavy-handed — albeit, apparently fact-based — revelation that’s not especially satisfying.

As in American Hustle , the writer-director wants to marry a rollicking narrative to a thoughtful commentary about America, painting an unflattering portrait of a nation that too easily forgets those who fought in its wars while buying into a myth of its unrivalled greatness. Many of the people Burt, Harold and Valerie encounter are cynical or corrupt but, in typical Russell fashion, his main characters have retained their idealistic streak. Amsterdam ’s joyous, indulgent cheekiness is meant to celebrate that playful defiance, turning a potentially tense whodunit into a giddy, sweeping romp. But what once felt effortless in Russell’s orchestrated mayhem here seems strained, a lark that refuses to take flight.

Production companies: New Regency, DreamCrew Entertainment, Keep Your Head, Corazon Camera   

Worldwide distribution: Disney

Producers: Arnon Milchan, Matthew Budman, Anthony Katagas, David O. Russell, Christian Bale          

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki

Production design: Judy Becker

Editing: Jay Cassidy

Music: Daniel Pemberton

Main cast: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Alessandro Nivola, Andrea Riseborough, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro

• United States
• Walt Disney

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Amsterdam Review

A mystery that fizzles..

Amsterdam premieres exclusively in theaters Oct. 7.

There’s a very good movie simmering inside Amsterdam that might have flourished if writer/director David O. Russell had the discipline to keep a tight rein on the overly ambitious scale of his script. A period piece/dramedy/mystery/thriller/romance/satire, Amsterdam reminded me of listening to a 6-year-old trying to tell you a story that just rambles off into a ditch because of their unfettered hyper indulgence with convoluted asides. What starts out as a relatively compact and clever tale of two WWI veterans who get framed for murder devolves into a hodgepodge of connected tangents that includes everything from a triangular soulmate relationship to the surreptitious rise of facism in the United States between WWI and WWII.

Burt (Christian Bale) narrates the overall story, and the context of his life as a WWI veteran who lost his eye in battle. Nowadays, he either works tirelessly or sees his best friend Harold Woodman (John David Washington), a lawyer in an all-Black firm. Russell takes us on a lengthy flashback to show us how the two met in France, 1918, when they were assigned to the same platoon. Riddled with shrapnel and major wounds, they’re patched up by Valerie Brandenburg (Margot Robbie), an American expat volunteer nurse in France, and the trio become inseparable, relocating to Amsterdam. Their idyllic existence ends, however, when Burt goes back home to his apathetic wife, Beatrice, (Andrea Riseborough). Valerie and Harold realize their romantic relationship can’t survive in America, Val vanishes, and Harold follows Burt to New York to get his law degree.

In 1933, Harold and Burt are summoned in secret by Liz Meekins (Taylor Swift), the daughter of their former non-racist commander, General Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.), to perform an autopsy on his recently deceased body, as she fears foul play. Burt performs the procedure with the help of mortician’s assistant Irma St. Clair (Zoe Saldana) and just as they go to reveal the results, Liz is brutally run over by a car driven by a scarred man (Timothy Olyphant), who then convinces the crowd that Harold and Burt pushed her. They go on the run and all hell breaks loose.

That’s a lot to process but there’s at least five other subplots not even mentioned. If Russell kept the story entirely focused on the trio of Valerie, Burt, and Howard, the movie would have been much lighter on its feet because of the rapport and comedic performances of Robbie, Bale, and Washington. They’re great together, and their halcyon remembrances of Amsterdam as their happiest and purest days of love and friendship are the most affecting of the film. They sizzle whenever they share the screen, as Bale’s manic energy, Washington’s dry wit, and Robbie’s wide-eyed idealism work in perfect synergy.

Who's your favorite actor in Amsterdam's star-studded cast?

And while they’re supported by some interesting performances by the likes of Saldana, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, and Chris Rock, most of the cast are operating within an impenetrable sliding scale of their personalities being “way too big” or “way too quirky.” There’s scenery chewing galore, especially as the machinations of the overarching plot reach their climax and there’s no shortage of scenes featuring arch fascists, corporatists, or moralists banging literal and figurative podiums. By the last 30 minutes, what should have been a lark-filled mystery unveiling instead becomes a pretty insufferable, verbose, on-the-nose conclusion that draws parallels to what happened then with today’s political discourse. How the movie went from a charming war friends pastiche to an ending that has Robert De Niro’s General character reading a speech next to actual footage of his real-life counterpart in history doing the same is exactly what’s wrong with Amsterdam. Russell just veers indiscriminately towards whatever he’s trying to say and hammers it home without any of the grace present in the first reel.

Strongest performances aside, Amsterdam is also an unequivocally beautiful film to look at. It’s like a Coen brothers feature procreated with a Wes Anderson movie and out popped Amsterdam’s aesthetics. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, production designer Judy Becker, and the costume and hair and makeup teams have recreated the time and places with incredible texture and gorgeous color palettes. Robbie and Anya Taylor-Joy are luminous. The men look dapper even if most are sporting some kind of post-war prosthetic scar or deformity. But in the end, none of the wrapping can save the film from the self-important nosedive it takes, which sadly sucks the life out of all of the early material that had such promise.

Amsterdam starts out strong but gets weighed down by David O. Russell’s heavy-handed script that devolves from an involving mystery into a preachy and overblown allegory about facism. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington have fantastic chemistry but they get buried under the weight of a script that suffocates the humanity of their story and veers off into a ridiculously complicated plot that feels like it goes on forever and never regains its heart.

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'Amsterdam' has as many ideas as it does stars

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Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington appear in a scene from Amsterdam. 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Studios hide caption

Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington appear in a scene from Amsterdam.

The film Amsterdam is a screwball comedy very loosely based on a real historical event from the 1930s. Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie play friends who get caught up in a political conspiracy. Written and directed by David O. Russell, the movie's sprawling ensemble also includes Robert De Niro, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Zoe Saldana.

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Amsterdam Reviews

This film misses the mark so often, but at least the leads salvage as much as they can, along with some other elements that keep it from being among the worst films ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 29, 2024

I have to wonder how a film full of great stars and such a compelling story (on paper) could result in such an uninspiring mess, but that’s what happens when a filmmaker prioritizes star power over writing.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 25, 2024

A moralizing version of [a] great political thriller ... I suspect that sounds like an ill-advised way to spend an evening.

Full Review | Jul 16, 2024

Amsterdam is noise and nothing more.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 3, 2024

David O. Russell’s latest outing is a glibly entertaining caper completely undone by its self-importance.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

While there has been some criticism about the plot being too busy and trying to say too many things, part of Amsterdam's charm is its "everything, everywhere, all at once" vibe.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

Despite being based in fact, the story ends up being rather bland and the movie becomes more about being a way to spotlight the actors.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 9, 2023

It's not just the wonky pacing, but that it forever feels like none of it lands the way it's supposed to. It's like a song with a beautifully formed melody played over a rhythm section that can't keep even basic time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2023

While Amsterdam was undoubtedly enjoyable to film for its many costars, the merriment doesn't quite translate to the screen. The plethora of side characters and celebrity cameos becomes confusing for a plot that is already too elaborate.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Really dug the friendship element & honestly if it wasn’t for Bale, Robbie, Washington & Joy I probably would have dipped out on the film as the direction/story itself was all held together by strings

David O Russell's latest - a shaggy dog mystery with a deliberate air of penny dreadfuls - could do with more straightforward narrative and fewer screwball convolutions

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 17, 2023

The down-your-throat optimism at the end of Amsterdam is certainly not the vehicle this film needed for any sort of entertaining climax. I've got plenty of other places to be preached to.

Full Review | Feb 15, 2023

Amsterdam wastes its immensely talented cast and a hefty budget on an unconvincing script and meandering storytelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 10, 2023

A disappointment of epic proportions.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2023

Amsterdam presents itself as a work of collaborative trust (thematically, but also formally, but also philosophically) so that discrete sections which threaten to strain credulity on their own, feel woven together with care and thoughtfulness.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2023

It’s by no means a perfect movie and has plenty of forgettable moments, but Amsterdam is certainly entertaining and that’s enough for me.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 4, 2023

Although the production, costume, hair and makeup design are outstanding, the material never rises to the superb level of its all star cast.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2023

I wouldn’t have missed the pro-democracy speeches that overwhelm Amsterdam in the end, had they been tacked back, but despite Russell’s strenuous efforts, you actually can’t have everything.

Full Review | Dec 24, 2022

The nearly impossible narrative is not quick witted let alone charming enough to be in the same vein as Preston Sturges or Ernst Lubitsch.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Dec 10, 2022

A kooky piece of messy Americana, but it’s enjoyable enough to make you appreciate the cast and craft.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2022

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Amsterdam review: A great film is fighting to get out

David o russell’s first film since ‘joy’ is stylish and full of charming performances, but feels longer than a three-day mini-break, article bookmarked.

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Dir: David O Russell. Starring: Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Robert de Niro, Rami Malek. Cert 15, 134 minutes

“A lot of this really happened” goes the title card for David O Russell ’s starry, stylish, caper-ish Amsterdam . Emphasis on “a lot”. In its relentless, pinballing plot, there’s a fascist coup, an unsolved murder, an entire world war, shady figures aplenty, many cunning plans, and… a love story. It runs to just over two hours, but I felt like I’d been watching it for three days. Which, coincidentally, is the same duration as my most recent – and far less eventful – trip to actual Amsterdam.

This is Russell’s first film since the intriguing mob boss biopic Joy in 2015. In those seven years, he seems to have had a lot of ideas and put them all of them into one film. Largely set in New York in the 1930s, his script hinges on a curious true story, in which a cabal of businessmen attempted to overthrow Franklin D Roosevelt and replace him with a popular war veteran who they could puppeteer for their own malevolent ends. This, though, ends up feeling like the Any Other Business section of a film you could describe as a comedy. Or a thriller. Or a mystery. Or a historical drama. It is, as I say, A Lot.

In fact, it functions best as a buddy movie. Christian Bale , John David Washington and Margot Robbie form our plucky trio. Bale is the zany doctor Burt Berendsen who “left my eye in France”. He likes coming up with experimental medicines and his hair gets more unkempt as the film gets wilder. Washington, largely the straight man, is the smart, sensitive lawyer Harold Woodman, who faces a lot of racism with quiet dignity. And Robbie, as nurse Valerie, smokes a pipe to let us know she’s ballsy. They meet and form a friendship pact during the First World War, in which Burt and Harold are blown up and stitched back together by Valerie, who makes arty sculptures from the shrapnel she removes from their bodies. When the conflict ends, they go to Amsterdam, where they emerge as a kind of Bloomsbury Group but with better-moisturised skin. We see them tangled up together on the floor, having heady nights out dancing, making art, supporting battle-torn veterans and wearing silly hats. The contrast is bluntly drawn: Amsterdam is a haven of free love, while America is a nest of prejudice and corruption. Unfortunate, then, they should end up dispersed and back in nasty old America, where Burt and Harold are falsely accused of murder.

The music is scampery. The vibe: hijinks. Sometimes it’s as though Wes Anderson were running a speakeasy, with the cast to match. Top-tier actors come and go at such a rate that it starts to feel a bit obnoxious. Look, it’s Chris Rock! Michael Shannon! Zoe Saldana! Anya Taylor-Joy! Mike Myers! Alessandro Nivola! Rami Malek! Robert de Niro! Taylor Swift is in a car crash within the first 10 minutes, which is to say she comes out of it a lot better than she did in Cats . After a while, these beautifully lit appearances make the film feel stilted, like when you’re playing a computer game and a new character pops up with some expositional dialogue to send you on a mission.

But the central performances are charming, and stretches of the film are enjoyable. Everything looks stylish and wonderful, and everyone has nice hair. Seriously, Rami Malek, what conditioner are you using? The thing is, there is a great film in here fighting to get out, but it’s drowned out by manic plotting, self-indulgence, and a thickly laid-on, twee message about love and art. Things start to unravel about halfway through as the plot gets denser and the point becomes foggier. Even the characters start to tell each other that they don’t know what’s going on. Who killed Taylor Swift’s dad? Who is running a set of inhumane sterilisation clinics? Who are the “Committee of Five”? Is someone drugging Valerie? Will Christian Bale’s wife ever let him move back in? In a handful of scenes, you can feel the creaky levering of the plot. It’s bizarre that so unwieldy a film should also feel so tightly manipulated.

One of Amsterdam ’s most intriguing elements is its sheer number of slightly broken men; so many of them are scarred and stitched together, bearing the wounds of the war on their bodies or behind their eyes. The film hints at some sophisticated ideas about the weaponisation of veterans and the complicated thread between masculinity, service and patriotism. There’s an unspoken understanding between those who fought, and shame directed at those who didn’t (Nivola’s detective character is teased about the “flat feet” that excused him). But the film skims past them in its pursuit of so many other things. It wants to address racism, intolerance, conspiracy theories, class, and plenty more besides. Eventually, it rolls over to give us its saccharine message about “art and love – that’s what makes the life worth living”. It’s hard not to raise an eyebrow, given Russell is allegedly a director who doesn’t treat people with a whole lot of love when he makes art. The main problem, though, is that this is a richly overstuffed concoction, and not many of us are inspired to creativity or kindness when we’re full. We tend to just need a lie-down.

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Amsterdam Should Feel Intoxicating, But It’s Exhausting

How we deal with our brokenness is the idea not so secretly at the center of most of David O. Russell’s films. In Amsterdam , he’s conjured up perhaps his most overt treatment of the subject: It opens with images of physical wounds and scars, and as the film proceeds, we realize how spiritually broken the characters are as well. Our ostensible hero is Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), a doctor who specializes in “fixing up banged-up guys like myself” — veterans of the First World War who struggle with missing limbs and faces, “all injuries the world was happy to forget.” The year is 1933, and a new war is on the horizon, but Burt will always be defined by the last one, whose marks he carries on multiple levels: He lost his eye and part of his cheek, wears a back brace, and now is constantly on the lookout for the latest advances in mind-altering medicine to get him through the day.

Many wounds loom over Amsterdam , but the film moves with the devil-may-care verve of a comic romp. Burt and his lawyer friend Harold Woodman (John David Washington) get yanked into a bizarre mystery involving the death of a senator and beloved ex-general, which the man’s daughter (Taylor Swift) suspects to be murder. Pulled into the shenanigans is gorgeous artist Valerie (Margot Robbie), whom Burt and Harold last saw in Amsterdam many years ago: In an extended flashback, we see the blissfully hedonistic idyll the three of them lived in the years after the war when Harold and Valerie were madly in love, Valerie was making beautiful shrapnel-art, and Burt had not yet returned to New York to resume his toxic marriage to the wealthy Beatrice Vandenheuvel (Andrea Riseborough). A yearning to return to the Eden of Amsterdam animates these characters.

It’d be easy to get bogged down with the story of Amsterdam , which manages to be heavily adorned with incident and character but not particularly elaborate, despite a couple of twists at the end. At its heart, the film wants to be a hangout movie. Russell loves to fill his casts with big names — this one includes Robert De Niro, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldaña, and Rami Malek, among many others — not because he needs them to get the movies financed (though I’m sure it helps) but because he clearly loves to give actors space to strut. And strut they do. Bale’s commedia dell’arte antics contrast nicely with Washington’s straight-man stylings, while Robbie seems to be in a constant state of transformation, from French nurse to American bohemian to New York socialite, perhaps embodying the existential restlessness of the period between the wars. Michael Shannon and Mike Myers show up as a couple of spies. Alessandro Nivola and Matthias Schoenaerts show up as a couple of cops. I could happily watch entire movies about some of these side characters.

Russell’s style is one I would call aggressive empathy : He insists on reminding us that everybody lives their own life, but his films aren’t patient or generous in the ways we associate with empathy. If Jean Renoir’s famous dictum that “everyone has their reasons” was, in that director’s eyes, a gentle but melancholy truth about the world, Russell seems to regard that same reality with alternating shockwaves of wonder and horror. His movies are both indulgent celebrations of and anxious nightmares about the fact that other people exist.

Amsterdam is filled with slapstick, wordplay, proto-musical numbers, and moments of broad, actorly abandon — so much so that, despite the fact that the story often feels like it’s on a predictable path, you never know if the movie itself will just stop and go in a completely different direction. Whenever it’s operating on that edge of uncertainty, the picture works marvelously. But the freewheeling freewheeling-ness can get to you after a while. As it accumulates running time (and characters and plot points), Amsterdam starts to get exhausting when it should perhaps feel liberating or intoxicating.

And Russell has difficulty tying everything up. For all its shaggy-dog qualities — and this should come as no surprise given the setting, the characters, and the premise — Amsterdam ’s tale is leading to something profound. It has big, timely points to make about spiritual injury, the specter of war, longing for lost utopias, and the rise of fascism. By the time the picture starts to lock back into its story, however, you might realize that it has become a totally different movie. A more serious movie but not necessarily a better one. Still, at least we had Amsterdam.

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Review: David O. Russell goes to war in ‘Amsterdam,’ but this historical farce Nether comes together

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The title of “Amsterdam,” the typically busy and discombulating new movie written and directed by David O. Russell, refers to the events of a memorable Dutch idyll in 1918, toward the end of the First World War. For two wounded American servicemen, Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) and Harold Woodman (John David Washington), and a nurse, Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie), overseeing their recovery, the city of Amsterdam becomes a temporary refuge and playground. The French New Wave may still be decades away, but there’s an invigorating dash of Truffaut (but really, true-friend) energy to these proceedings. For a few tender, spirited moments you might be reminded of “Jules and Jim” or perhaps Godard’s “Band of Outsiders,” even when Burt’s shot-up face is wrapped in bandages or when Valerie, an aspiring Dadaist, is molding sculptures from the bloody bullets and shrapnel she’s extracted from her patients’ wounds.

Russell himself pushed the carnage of war to aesthetic extremes in 1999’s “Three Kings,” when he turned his camera into an X-ray and showed us — in squirm-inducing, viscera-rupturing detail — what a bullet can do to the human body. While it features its own lovingly detailed glimpses of torn flesh and lingering scars, “Amsterdam” seems rather less inclined to get too deep inside its characters, physically or otherwise. Like Russell’s splendid ’70s caper, “American Hustle” (2013), the movie is a roving piece of period whimsy and a madcap history lesson, a parade of concealed motives and cunning switcheroos loosely inspired — and just barely held together — by real-world events. (It also shares with that movie a few gifted Russell regulars, including production designer Judy Becker and editor Jay Cassidy.)

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But unlike “Hustle,” “Amsterdam” only fitfully locates the moment-to-moment comic verve — or the bittersweet sense of longing — that would give these characters and their farcical shenanigans the deeper human resonance it’s clearly aiming for. What the movie boasts instead is a lot of surface-level freneticism, done in a now-ritualistic Russell mode of controlled chaos that more often than not turns creakily mechanical. There’s a flashback-juggling structure, a large ensemble cast that seems to multiply by the minute and a lot of drunk and disorderly camerawork (vaguely recognizable as that of the gifted Emmanuel Lubezki) that dances its way through scene after scene of rambunctiously choreographed action.

That action kicks off in New York in 1933; the interwar years are slowly rumbling to a close, and whispers of unrest can be heard beneath the bustling city noise and the notes of Daniel Pemberton’s airily charming score. Joining forces not for the first time, Burt, a doctor, and Harold, an attorney, are quietly brought in to investigate the sudden demise of an Army general, Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.), who commanded their regiment during World War I. Taylor Swift pops up for a suitably swift cameo as Meekins’ daughter, Liz, hanging around just long enough to voice her teary-eyed suspicions of foul play before leaving the dogged Burt and Harold to figure out what’s going on.

So begins a shaggily plotted whodunit that the movie approaches with a sometimes charming, sometimes tiresome and faintly Raymond Chandler-esque reluctance to solve. Unsurprisingly, Russell crams in as many odd jolts and detours as possible, among them an impromptu autopsy (made bearable by Zoe Saldaña as a nurse who’s stolen Burt’s heart), a few violent ambushes and one or two relaxing conversations on the subject of birdwatching. (Michael Shannon and Mike Myers pop up as charming amateur ornithologists, though as with almost everyone here, there’s a bit more to their identities than meets the eye.) Along the way, Russell slides in that crucial 1918 flashback: We see Burt, who’s part Jewish, being shipped off to war by his status-conscious wife, Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough), and her relatives, whose antisemitism is as plain as their Park Avenue address. Burt becomes a medic with a unit modeled on the famous 369th Infantry Regiment, tending mostly to Black soldiers, like Harold, shunned by their white fellow servicemen.

For all the scurrying randomness of incident in “Amsterdam,” there’s nothing accidental about the lifelong friendship that develops between Burt and Harold, both of whom bleed in service of a racist country that despises them. (Burt even loses an eye and will spend much of the story popping a glass one in and out of its socket — an overdone bit that nonetheless packs some metaphorical punch in a movie about not always trusting what you see.) The two men are sent to hospital in Paris, where they meet the captivating Valerie, and then it’s off to those blissful days of recovery and revelry in Amsterdam. It’s here that the movie briefly spreads its wings, animated by the capriciousness of the central performances — Robbie’s mercurial wit, Washington’s seductive cool, Bale’s big heart and frizzy hair — and by a freewheeling sense of la vie bohème possibility. For a few moments, it feels as if the movie really could go anywhere.

But that feeling can’t last. Burt returns to awful Beatrice in New York, the mutually smitten Harold and Valerie go their separate ways, Amsterdam becomes a distant memory and “Amsterdam” itself comes crashing to earth. Returning to 1933, Russell does try to keep spirits aloft and the narrative engine going, though more often than not it stalls out. Burt and Harold’s investigation turns up still more supporting players, including Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy as a wealthy, gabby married couple and Matthias Schoenaerts and a memorably testy Alessandra Nivola as two nosy police officers. (I’m still trying to parse Chris Rock’s narrative function, or at least figure out why the actor — reportedly so funny on the set that Bale had to avoid him to stay in character — feels so wasted here.) Amid these and other complications, our heroes will expose the roots of a sinister conspiracy, hatched by industrialists eager to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency and hasten the rise of fascism across and beyond Europe.

“A lot of this really happened,” the script declares at the outset, deploying the kind of cheeky disclaimer language (similarly used in “American Hustle”) that allows a movie to pat itself on the back for its partial accuracy and its bold departures from the historical record. The story does jolt to life — and acquire a real center of moral gravity — once Robert De Niro shows up as the distinguished Gen. Gil Dillenbeck, a fictionalized stand-in for Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, who ultimately brought the so-called Business Plot to public light. Still, in Russell’s topsy-turvy cosmos, historical accuracy is but one measure of truthfulness: If liberal despair has long been his guiding thematic light (especially in his delirious 2004 farce, “I Heart Huckabees” ), then here it’s the many recent and ongoing threats to global democracy that have him none too subtly wringing his hands.

That gives “Amsterdam” a certain currency in a world still reeling from the presidency of Donald Trump and the attendant rise of far-right politicians all over the globe. But there’s a nagging half-heartedness to these bids for topicality, and something less than conviction in the movie’s semisweet encouragement of optimism in the face of mounting danger. This isn’t the first (or probably the last) Russell entertainment to pull its characters back from the brink of unfathomable chaos, or to encourage its characters and its audience to give peace, love and understanding a chance. But if the memory of Amsterdam hovers over Burt, Harold and Valerie like a beacon from happier, more innocent times, then “Amsterdam” itself is another bittersweet callback, a reminder — and, only fitfully, a reclamation — of a filmmaker’s lost vitality.

‘Amsterdam’

Rating: R, for brief violence and bloody images Running time: 2 hours, 14 minutes Playing: Starts Oct. 7 in general release

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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Amsterdam Review

04 Nov 2022

At one point in Amsterdam , there is a scene involving (deep breath) Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington. Remi Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert De Niro, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola. Perhaps the single most stacked-with-talent scene in 2022, it points to one of the problems with David O. Russell ’s sprawling, intermittently enjoyable film: it is simultaneously over-stuffed and under-nourished. It proffers ambitious filmmaking, full of strong craft, great bits and big thematic swings but Amsterdam never really catches fire and fails to amount to more than the sum of its occasionally impressive parts.

Amsterdam opens with the title card: ‘A lot of this really happened’, mostly referring to a little-known dark chapter of US history — an elaborate political coup conspiracy — that emerges in the film’s second half. Before it gets to that, Russell’s script is a mash-up of different sub-genres — crime flick, Hawksian screwball comedy, two-guys-and-a-girl movie — that never finds the right tenor to unify its whackier and more sober elements. It’s at its most fun when, in a lengthy flashback, it etches the friendship between doctor Burt ( Christian Bale ), lawyer Harold ( John David Washington ) and nurse Valerie ( Margot Robbie ), evoking a freewheeling, capricious Jules Et Jim vibe.

Neither serious enough to be sharp satire, nor energetic enough to deliver exuberant farce.

This idealistic, sweet quality ultimately can’t survive in an over-complicated murder plot that blows up into something bigger. Russell wants to use it to make comments about contemporary America (clue: standing up to fascists) but it’s neither serious enough to be sharp satire, nor energetic enough to deliver exuberant farce.

The central trio are winningly played, if thinly drawn, Bale and Robbie’s characters boasting an over-abundance of quirks (him: a false eye that keeps falling out, a penchant for experimenting with meds; her: pipe-smoking, making sculpture out of shrapnel) whereas Washington is somewhat flavourless by comparison. The supporting cast, from Malek and Taylor-Joy’s social-climbers to Myers and Shannon’s bird-watching spies, register without being especially memorable. Taylor Swift gets an instantly meme-able moment. It’s left to Russell regular De Niro, playing a comrade of the murdered General, to provide an anchor for the wayward proceedings.

The Russell film it most resembles is American Hustle , sharing its flamboyance and broad scope, not to mention great costumes — take a bow J.R. Hawbaker and the legendary Albert Wolsky. From production designer Judy Becker’s recreations of ‘30s New York to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s gorgeous, fluid, sepia-tinged images, Amsterdam is a treat to look at. It is also a delight to listen to, Daniel Pemberton’s score adding lightness and much-needed urgency, mainly through woodwind action. It’s a shame, then, that such technical proficiency couldn’t align to better-judged storytelling. Amsterdam wants to celebrate love, humanity and kindness in the messy tapestry of life. It just needed more care and control in weaving the threads.

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Amsterdam Review: An Overcooked, But Entertaining Mystery

Starring christian bale, john david washington and margot robbie..

It will take individual members of the moviegoing audience only a few minutes to decide whether or not David O. Russell’s Amsterdam is a film that is “for them.” A manic tone is established from the outset as we are introduced to Christian Bale ’s Burt Berendsen, a Hunter S. Thompson-esque doctor and World War I veteran with a glass eye who operates a shady medical practice helping out fellow veterans in 1933 New York City. Voiceover from Burt quickly ushers us through his life and work before catapulting the character to a meeting with his best friend, John David Washington ’s Harold Woodman, a fellow veteran and attorney who proceeds to roll out a dead man in a box (Ed Begley Jr.) and introduce the corpse’s grieving daughter ( Taylor Swift ), who is certain that her father was murdered.

Quippy zaniness is the keystone of the madcap adventure, and that voice is relentless even as the film veers towards some of the most consequential subject matter in modern history. If it’s not your thing, you’ll check out immediately, but those who get onboard will find an entertaining, albeit overcooked mystery that is enhanced with what feels in the moment like a seemingly endless ensemble of talented actors who enter the picture with each new plot development.

The aforementioned dead man in a box is identified as General Bill Meekins, who not only has a close history with Burt and Harold (technically he was the one who introduced them), but was supposed to be the main speaker at a benefit that the two men are coordinating. They believe Meekins’ daughter’s claims, which then almost immediately results in more murder… and then, indicative of the movie’s weirdness, everything goes into flashback mode. We first see how Burt first met Harold during World War I in France 1918, but then we learn how the duo met Valerie Voze ( Margot Robbie ), an eccentric nurse who patches them up and saves their lives after they are nearly killed on the battlefield.

Amsterdam's manic style is matched well with an engaging mystery.

Amsterdam sports a lot of “stranger than fiction” energy (it opens with a non-committal based-on-a-true story title card reading “A lot of this really happened”), and it more than occasionally feels like it’s trying to do too much – such as with Valerie’s avant-garde artistic sensibilities making sculpture from shrapnel, and the trio coming up with a “nonsense song” comprised of random French phrases. It takes quirkiness into the red, but the film works because it’s all tied to an engaging and propulsive mystery.

Once the movie bounces back from the flashback – with Burt, Harold and Valerie’s lives becoming intertwined while they live together in the titular city after World War I – Amsterdam establishes proper stakes and keeps the narrative moving with Burt and Harold finding clues that get them closer to discovering the truth of what happened to General Meekins. It never gets particularly complex, but it also never gets stupid, and each progression in the plot keeps you wondering about what’s coming next.

Part of the fun of Amsterdam is wondering what famous face will show up next.

Said curiosity is both driven by the desire to know the answers to the movie’s biggest questions, as well as David O. Russell’s special brand of stunt casting. If I could make one particular recommendation going into Amsterdam , it would be that you should avoid looking at the film’s full cast list (and I’m actually going to stop naming names in this review beyond those I have already mentioned). Practically every line is delivered by actors who are headlining movies released throughout the year – and none of them are shortchanged. Each has a memorable part to play and a standout personality to go with it.

Of course, anchoring the whole thing is the trio headlining the adventure. Given that Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie have proven themselves as three of the most consummate performers working today, their success should inspire little surprise, but that makes it no less wonderful. Chemistry in the triumvirate is essential to the story that David O. Russell is telling, and theirs is effortless and palpable. Between the three, Bale is given the most to work with and delivers one of his best comedic performances – rounding out his David O. Russell trilogy after making The Fighter and American Hustle – but they are all given memorable lines and moments from the writer/director’s script.

Their individual characters’ eccentricities and choices in their performances mesh impressively well together, and the movie clicks into high gear when they are all together – first in the World War I flashback, and then in 1933 when Burt and Harold are inadvertently reunited with Valerie while trying to solve the murder mystery.

Amsterdam walks a narrow tightrope line of being too much, and there are moments where knees bend and arms flail for balance, but it does stay upright and put on a show in the process. It has a distinct voice, an entertaining story to tell and a well-used phenomenal cast, which amounts to a fun cinematic experience.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

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Amsterdam review: An exhausting, overlong conspiracy thriller

Amsterdam could have been forgiven for being a lot of things, but dull is not one of them. The new film from writer-director David O. Russell boasts one of the most impressive ensemble casts of the year and is photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, one of Hollywood’s premier cinematographers. Beyond that, its kooky premise and even wackier cast of characters open the door for Amsterdam to be the kind of screwball murder mystery that O. Russell, at the very least, seems uniquely well-equipped to make.

Instead, Amsterdam is a disaster of the highest order. It’s a film made up of so many disparate, incongruent parts that it becomes clear very early on in its 134-minute runtime that no one involved — O. Russell most of all — really knew what it is they were making. It is a misfire of epic proportions, a comedic conspiracy thriller that is written like a haphazard screwball comedy but paced like a meandering detective drama. Every element seems to be at odds with another, resulting in a film that is rarely funny but consistently irritating.

As its exposition-laden opening narration establishes, Amsterdam follows Dr. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), a doctor and war veteran who has grown used to living every day with a glass eye and back brace. Forever changed by his experience fighting in World War I, Burt has taken it upon himself to try to single-handedly care for all of the other wounded vets who have been left behind by the elites of early 1930s New York City. Unfortunately for him, it’s this philanthropic instinct that leads Burt into agreeing to conduct a covert autopsy on the body of his former commanding officer.

When Burt discovers that the man in question was, indeed, poisoned, he is forced to team back up with two of his WWI companions, a lawyer named Harold Woodsman (John David Washington) and Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie), the former combat nurse who saved Burt and Harold’s lives when they were injured in the war. Before long, Burt, Harold, and Valerie all find themselves caught up in a conspiracy involving several powerful businessmen, a celebrated American general (played by Robert De Niro), and the authoritarian political wave that’s simultaneously sweeping through Europe.

If that all sounds a bit messy and convoluted, that’s because it is. However, while Amsterdam ’s premise is loosely based on an obscure American political conspiracy known as the Business Plot , the film fails to coherently adapt its real-life story for the big screen. O. Russell’s attempts to stress the contemporary relevance of the Business Plot itself never come across as anything more than ham-fisted and hackneyed, either, and that’s especially true by the time that Amsterdam tosses out a lazy and obvious visual joke in its third act about the secretly fascistic design of one character’s hedges.

Amsterdam also saddles most of its cast members with some of the most inauthentic and cloying dialogue you’ll likely hear this year. Zoe Saldaña, for instance, is utterly wasted in a thankless role that would rather her espouse empty platitudes about the nature of love than contribute anything of real substance to Amsterdam ’s story. O. Russell’s script, meanwhile, buries Robbie, Washington, and Bale’s natural charisma beneath superfluous layers of eccentricities that add little to their characters, and the love story that binds Harold, Burt, and Valerie together is so thinly sketched and saccharine that it ultimately rings false.

There are a few performers who do manage to make the most out of O. Russell’s screwball swings — namely, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Alessandro Nivola, and Andrea Riseborough. Anya Taylor-Joy also makes an admirable attempt at bringing her obnoxiously narcissistic character to life in as satirical a way as possible, but the heightened aspects of her performance are drowned out by both O. Russell’s frequently odd editing choices and the sleepy performance that Rami Malek gives as her on-screen partner, Tom.

For his part, Lubezki’s cinematography imbues Amsterdam with a kind of warmth and sensitivity that its dramatically inert script lacks. Lubezki’s meditative, Malick-esque visual style does often seem to be at odds with O. Russell’s frenetic sense of humor, though, which only makes the disconnect between the way Amsterdam is written and the way it was brought to life that much more apparent. While J.R. Hawbaker and Albert Wolsky’s costumes only further reinforce Amsterdam ’s needlessly quirky style as well, the duo do manage to clothe the film’s stars in a number of memorable outfits. (This writer was particularly fond of the top hat-centric look Robbie rocks in  Amsterdam ‘s second act.)

The film’s visual achievements are not enough to rescue Amsterdam . The film is a creative and directorial miss that feels doomed from its tedious opening moments all the way to its emotionally hollow final frames. What could have been a messy but, at the very least, delightfully exuberant 90-minute conspiracy comedy has been rendered as a 135-minute wannabe prestige production. Every line of dialogue sounds like it was intended to be thrown out like a fastball but was instead read at half-speed, which leaves many of Amsterdam ’s scenes with the kind of dead pauses that only grind its momentum to an even greater halt.

Between this, Joy , and American Hustle , it seems safe to say that whatever goodwill O. Russell had accrued with The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook has since dried up. Much like the poisoned veteran at the center of its story, Amsterdam is simply dead on arrival.

Amsterdam is now playing in theaters.

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Review: ‘Amsterdam’ wastes incredible talent on a dull story

This image released by 20th Century Studios shows, from left, Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington in a scene from “Amsterdam.” (Merie Weismiller Wallace/20th Century Studios via AP)

This image released by 20th Century Studios shows, from left, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy in a scene from “Amsterdam.” (Merie Weismiller Wallace/20th Century Studios via AP)

This image released by 20th Century Studios shows, from left, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Christian Bale, Chris Rock and Robert De Niro in a scene from “Amsterdam.” (Merie Weismiller Wallace/20th Century Studios via AP)

This image released by 20th Century Studios shows, clockwise from left, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek, Christian Bale, Robert De Niro and Margot Robbie in a scene from “Amsterdam.” (Merie Weismiller Wallace/20th Century Studios via AP)

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The stars appear one after the other — a banquet of talent, a glut of inventiveness — and yet nothing clicks. Hollywood’s most famous squirm in a slog.

Welcome to “Amsterdam,” writer and director David O. Russell’s answer to the question: Can some of the top actors in the world manage to elevate poor material? The answer is a dull no. It becomes a slaughterhouse.

Just look at this lead cast: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington. Russell wastes them with pointless dialogue and tedious scenes.

Then imagine a second tier of roles with Alessandro Nivola, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Taylor Swift, Zoe Saldaña, Rami Malek and Robert De Niro. All are left powerless. They are in a charisma-removal machine.

Bale and Washington play World War I veterans and fierce friends — soldiers who crossed the racial divide in France — and Robbie plays an inventive nurse who treats them. This bonded trio stumble onto a plot to overthrow the U.S. government while being framed for murder in 1930s New York.

It uses these three fictional characters to explore a real event in the runup to the Second World War in which a cabal of wealthy American businessmen conspired to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt by duping a retired general popular among veterans into being their figurehead.

“Amsterdam” shifts from 1933 to 1918 as it fills out backstories and love affairs. After returning to the ‘30s, Bale has become a kindly doctor and Washington’s character becomes a lawyer, both helping fellow vets. The nurse is strung out on prescription drugs.

But unable to find a tone — screwball, noir, whodunit, rom-com, satire or thriller — the film plods along at its own airless, internal pace, leaving most of the actors so befuddled it’s not always clear they know what they’re aiming at either.

It’s a film where no one seems to answer a direct question, gruesome autopsies are performed on camera followed by whimsically sung ditties, and a script that tries for the profound when it says things like people “follow the wrong God home.”

“This is so strange,” says the good doctor at one point. “What does it mean?” Don’t ask us.

“Amsterdam” reaches for something contemporary to say about race relations, concentration of wealth, veterans and fascism but ends up with a plodding, mannerist noise. This is what dollar bills must smell like burning. One starts to wonder if it was all a tax write-off.

Take Bale, who already reached his glass-eye limit onscreen when he starred in “Big Short.” Somehow he agreed to another such role, this time with the eyeball popping out numerous times and spilling on the ground. He attacks his role with a weird “Columbo” thing going, tilting angularly and adopting a rich New York accent.

Washington and Robbie have apparently chosen to ignore Bale’s lead by acting as if they are in two separate and different movies — she plays a manic pixie artist who uses shrapnel to make sculptures and he makes his character stone-faced and passive. Everyone else seems to be badly mimicking old ‘30s films. (Swift sings at one point but otherwise she is marooned and wooden.)

It’s not just the cast that is taken down: Emmanuel Lubezki, a celebrated director of photography who wowed with “Gravity” and “The Revenant,” turns in a film that seems very brown and undynamic.

Russell, the director of such taut dramas as “Three Kings” and “American Hustle,” has clearly vanished here. You can almost hear the collective rejoinder from the real city of Amsterdam: Why’d you do us dirty, man?

“Amsterdam,” a 20th Century Studios release exclusively for movie theaters starting Friday, is rated R for brief violence and bloody images. Running time: 134 minutes. No stars out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/amsterdam

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

'Amsterdam' Review: David O. Russell's Latest Film Is a Star-Studded Disaster

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For a film ostensibly about the power of kindness, David O. Russell ’s Amsterdam sure is damn cruel to its audience. Running at a punishing two-plus hours with a star-studded yet sleepy cast of typically strong actors , it is a slog of epic proportions that utterly wastes the talents of all involved. Completely lacking in cleverness and without any sense of direction, it is a cinematic drought of entertainment that only has any intrigue in how baffling an artifact it remains. It may not be the worst movie of the year, but it is certainly the most annoying.

Establishing what it is actually about is both easy with regard to its simplistic themes and difficult due to just how unnecessarily convoluted it is. On a basic level, it is about how a murder in the 1930s is pinned on a group of friends who must work together to figure out what happened and clear their names. There is the eccentric doctor Burt Berendsen ( Christian Bale ), the exasperated lawyer Harold Woodman ( John David Washington ), and the troubled artist Valerie Voze ( Margot Robbie ) who all formed a close bond during wartime in, you guessed it, Amsterdam. Many years later, the group has split though Burt and Harold are trying to support those who also served after they sustained serious wounds. In the midst of this, they are approached by Liz Meekins ( Taylor Swift ) about the suspicious death of her father, General Bill Meekins ( Ed Begley Jr. ), who was someone the two men respected. Liz wants them to bring her back the results of an autopsy to determine if there was foul play. For any fans hoping the musician’s character would have a more prominent role, she makes a swift exit that further complicates matters as a coverup starts to take shape.

What follows is a scattershot series of scenes that strive to be abundantly quirky though just come off as painfully obnoxious. Much of this comes down to the writing, which somehow manages to be both overwrought and undercooked, though it is also poorly constructed on a technical level. The many dialogue scenes where characters take part in banal and ongoing banter become an endurance test when edited so haphazardly. While the scenes were not funny to begin with, the manner in which they are stitched together strips away even the smallest hint of enjoyment. Characters will seem to change positions at random as if there was not even the most basic of camera coverage when it was shot. Many sequences seem as though the cast may not have always shared a room together as their eyelines don’t match up and the pacing gets spliced to all hell. By the time it feels like it may settle down, there will be an inexplicable series of cuts that completely take you out of the scene. It makes every repetitive and dragged-out sequence of conversation that much worse to endure.

RELATED: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington & David O. Russell on Making 'Amsterdam'

That all of this is very loosely based on some actual events that stand out from history, as Russell has done many times before in his career, ends up feeling like a missed opportunity when told so poorly. It seeks to play out as a fable about creeping fascism, a subject that is both urgent and enduring, only with the most superficial of approaches. The priority of every single scene is schtick which is never funny, despite how self-impressed it is with itself, and completely pushes any more incisive observations to the side. In more competent hands, this juxtaposition between being more whimsical and weighty could work as each would bring the other into greater clarity. In Amsterdam , everything is assembled with an air of anachronistic absurdity and becomes maddeningly muddled. There is never a moment of respite as characters just keep rambling through scene after scene without any sense of purpose to it.

It frustratingly relies on flashbacks within flashbacks and a dearth of narration in a desperate attempt to hold together that ultimately falls apart. Perhaps if it had taken the plunge fully into the absurdity there could have been something to cling to. Instead, the film fumbles its way through every moment as it tries to fast talk over the top of everything taking place in the hopes you won’t notice how all over the place it is. It is oddly plot-driven as the characters keep having to go to a place to talk to a person, but shockingly little of consequence actually happens. As a result, there isn’t much that changes with the characters in terms of the journey they take. Making matters worse is how stiff everyone is as they speak in a way that borders on becoming a parody of itself. None of the cast comes out unscathed, no matter their best efforts, all caught in the crossfire of Russell's lack of vision.

Throughout the laborious experience, the person who kept popping into my head who could have given it some life was Amy Adams . She had done so when she starred in Russell’s previous film American Hustle , a work that now seems like a masterpiece compared to this, and has an irreplaceable screen presence that is absent here. Where everyone else was floundering and one-note, Adams could have struck a better balance. Then one remembers that the director treated her so terribly in the past and you understand why no one would ever want to work with him. This is where I would be remiss to not discuss how Russell has had a long track record of allegations of abuse , both off-set and on, dating back decades. However much we like to “separate the art from the artist,” when the artist is driving away talented people then the art itself also begins to suffer. That is before we even get to the potentially self-serving nature of the story and how, with Russell’s history, it is increasingly hard to take seriously. Through the cacophony of narrative noise, the film tries to prop itself up as being an example of how the characters that exercise kindness are the best of who we all should be.

This is, to put it lightly, rather rich coming from a filmmaker like Russell. While his background has been somewhat overlooked in the press leading up to its release, there is something deeply discomforting about a film that champions treating others well when he is at the helm of it. That is where the film crosses from being poorly made to being incessantly insulting to its audience. What was already hollow in how little it seemed to care to actually craft a compelling cinematic experience turns downright dour. For all the ways the film dresses itself up as being insightful, the core of the experience just leaves a feeling of phoniness. Russell puts the story through all the motions, often relying on the star power of its leads to convince us of its sincerity, only for it to crumble to pieces when it really counts. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth as the house of cards of humility and heart falls apart when put under the slightest bit of scrutiny. What remains when Amsterdam grinds to a halting conclusion is a work of poor imitation, a cinematic con that fails to convince us it's actually any good as a film or worth even a moment of time taken seriously.

Amsterdam premieres in theaters on October 7.

• Movie Reviews

'Amsterdam' review: Christian Bale can't rescue David O. Russell from himself

Don't be fooled by the glossy promotional campaign of Amsterdam . Sure, on paper this seems a dazzling pick perfect for fall, boasting big stars like Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, and Taylor Swift. Its trailer and character posters possess a zippy energy, while a "based on a true story" hook makes its tale of intriguing characters, conspiracy, and murder seem all the more alluring. However, David O. Russell's latest is a dour disappointment. Behind the high energy and flashy cast, there's a shocking lack of emotional depth — like a performer giving us jazz hands paired with a vacant stare. 

Inspired by the 1933 Business Plot, Amsterdam centers on a trio of American bohemians who met while serving overseas in World War I. Two were soldiers; one was a nurse. All three were drawn together by a desire to find the beauty in the ugliness around them. But once the war is over, new battles must be fought on the home front.

For Dr. Burt Berendsen (Bale) and attorney Harold Woodman (Washington), this means watching out for the swiftly forgotten veterans who carry both mental and physical wounds. It's this shared cause that draws them into a mystery where they're framed for murder. During a haphazard quest to clear their names, they reconnect with former military nurse Valerie Voze (Robbie), whose quirks make her a pariah in her high society milieu. Reunited and ready for the fray, the three will collide with outrageous allies, fiendish foes, political intrigue, and the dark side of American capitalism. 

David O. Russell had a great idea with Amsterdam . 

Written and directed by Russell, Amsterdam is promising in its conceit. These three characters are all full of love and intellect, and each shares not only a common passion for humanity but also a form of oppression that undermines them at every turn.

Berendsen's Jewish heritage is regarded with sneers or pity by the wealthy WASPy circles in which his wife (a sharply smug Andrea Riseborough) flits. Whether dealing with the military, police, or rich white folks, Woodman faces blatant anti-Black racism, while Voze is written off as a hysterical woman because of her creativity and compassion for those outside her lofty socio-economic class. This setup allows Russell to explore how the rampant marginalization of people because of their faith, race, and gender flies in the face of the ideals of the American dream, creating increased adversity instead of opportunity.

Beyond that, Russel makes a savvy move by translating the tale of a would-be political coup ( timely! ) with the whodunnit genre, which has seen renewed excitement since Rian Johnson's sensational Knives Out . Like whodunnits of late ( See How They Run , Bodies Bodies Bodies , and The Glass Onion ), Amsterdam delivers a complicated mystery, colorful characters, a slathering of social commentary, and an eccentric detective (or three) at its center. However, where Amsterdam falls flat is in a lack of conviction that makes the film's core message feel a feigned call to action. 

Christian Bale goes hard in Amsterdam. 

Following The Fighter and American Hustle, this is Bale's third collaboration with Russell. And as he does in everything from his Oscar-winning turn in The Fighter to his recent debut as an MCU baddie in Thor: Love and Thunder , Bale chucks himself ferociously into his work. Here, he is physically emaciated, balancing rapid-fire banter with broad comedic mugging and pratfalls, such as one scene which he chases a skittering glass eye. If this is a three-ring circus, Bale is gamely playing not only the ringmaster but also a capering clown. A force of nature, Bale can often be the best part of a movie, good or bad, and in this bad movie, he is the best, delivering dialogue and comedic stunts with a full-bodied commitment that brings Berendsen to vivid life. 

For his part, Washington is given far less to do as the underwritten straight man to Bale's stooge. Sure, he's debonair. But if he gets a punchline, none are memorable or perhaps memorably landed as Bale's. Still, Washington sparks a pleasing chemistry with Robbie, which makes a thread of romance initially promising. But forced to the backseat of this story, their flirtation feels ultimately flimsy, undercutting the film's finale.

As for Robbie, she speaks French, sings spiritedly, stumbles about for laughs, and plays a beguiling version of a dizzy but divine socialite. Her Valerie feels the a clear imitation of the kind of screwball comedy heroine that Katharine Hepburn made a trope decades ago. 

Adding to the atmosphere of audaciousness and attitude are Chris Rock as a wise-cracking veteran, Anya Taylor-Joy as a snarling snob, Timothy Olyphant as a marred menace, Zoe Saldana as a charming coroner, Alessandro Nivola as a jumpy cop, and Robert De Niro as a national hero who'll suffer no fools. There's more, plenty more — Michael Shannon! Mike Myers! Taylor Swift! But for all these heralded performers and all the effort, energy, and screen presence they bring, Amsterdam is astonishingly inert.

David O. Russell's execution kills Amsterdam . 

As impossible as it might be to imagine from these descriptions of a wild whodunnit based on a true story studded with stars, this movie is boring. The suffocating, sepia-rich color palette mirrors the look of old photographs; it's possible that this aesthetic choice makes the film subconsciously feel dated in a bad way. Then there's the chaotic pacing of the film, which is steadily disjointed and jarring in the way it pinballs between locations, with uneven bursts of action. Perhaps it's the runtime, which at two hours and 14 minutes feels punishing. Russell's script tediously tiptoes around grim elements like Nazism and eugenics, as if their existence in 1933 America will play as some big reveal. 

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Are these the cause of Amsterdam 's inexplicable listlessness? Or are they symptoms of a much bigger problem, which is that Russell doesn't believe what he's preaching?

Throughout the journey of its central trio, Amsterdam makes the case that art and love will be our salvation from the manmade evils of this world, be they war, corruption, bigotry, greed, or conspiracy. The performances, keyed to a tune that's reminiscent of the screwball comedies of early Hollywood, aim to channel that bouncy energy into enthusiasm toward this message. But they can't save Amsterdam from itself; ultimately the movie feels shallow, like a preacher who has lost faith and is just going through the motions. Personally, I was shocked to feel so unmoved from its emotional beats; I should be an easy mark for such a message. Russell is preaching to the choir! And yet, Amsterdam left me feeling empty rather than inspired. 

Behind the star power, frenzied plotting, and fast-paced banter, there's just no there there. So, in the end, Amsterdam is chiefly amazing in how underwhelming it is. 

Amsterdam opens in theaters Oct. 7.

Topics Film

Kristy Puchko is the Film Editor at Mashable. Based in New York City, she's an established film critic and entertainment reporter, who has traveled the world on assignment, covered a variety of film festivals, co-hosted movie-focused podcasts, interviewed a wide array of performers and filmmakers, and had her work published on RogerEbert.com, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian. A member of the Critics Choice Association and GALECA as well as a Top Critic on Rotten Tomatoes, Kristy's primary focus is movies. However, she's also been known to gush over television, podcasts, and board games. You can follow her on Twitter.

Amsterdam Goes For Wokeness Over Substance

David O. Russell's latest film is giving me flashbacks of that video of A-list celebrities singing “Imagine” to us over Zoom.

Amsterdam, David O. Russell's first film in over seven years, begins with a title card that explains what people have come to be familiar with in true-story films, telling us, "a lot of this really happened." What the audience learns after, however, is that not only did most of what you just saw arguably never occur, but the big scandal itself may have never even taken place at all. You don’t get the answer to one of America’s best-kept political secrets at Amsterdam 's end . You mostly just get tricked into learning what this crime caper has covertly been leading toward this entire time.

The story begins with Dr. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale), a half-Jewish, half-Christian Manhattanite who treats veterans and has a wonky glass eye from his own tour of service in World War I. He's clearly a guy who never could have existed in real life—or if he did, he couldn't have had anything to do with this story. For all the nonsense that ensues in Amsterdam , Bale is the film's one shining beacon of hope. He's fully committed to his character, as opposed to some of his castmates, and his slapstick comedic timing is one of Amsterdam 's only saving graces. Like a reluctant noir detective, he's constantly jostled around and thrown to the ground, occasionally having to paw around for his lost eye like Velma's glasses in Scooby-Doo .

War buddy Harold Woodman (John David Washington) calls and informs him that their former army general, Senator Bill Meekins (a corpse-like Ed Begley Jr.) has been murdered. The Senator's daughter, Elizabeth (Taylor Swift), contacts Burt to perform a secret autopsy. Yes, the mega-pop star is here for two scenes—one of which will surely be memed out of existence. After another murder takes place, the gang becomes suspects in a larger political scandal. A long, impossible-to-solve-yourself plot occurs over the course of the film, wherein every new character you meet is an instantly recognizable celebrity. (Cue: Margot Robbie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Remi Malek, Zoe Saldaña, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Michael Shannon, and Timothy Olyphant). Eventually, all roads lead to retired General Gil Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro). He's a decorated veteran based on real-life figure Major General Smedley Butler, who spoke about late payments from the Great Depression during what is known as the 1932 Bonus Army march on Washington. It's the first time in Amsterdam that I was certain we got to something that actually took place in American history.

It may have taken forever to get here after galavanting in an Amsterdam war hospital and a wealthy businessman's estate, but this is when the film finally gets to why David O. Russell seemingly made the damn thing. You see, a bunch of old-timey business tycoons allegedly planned to take over the government and replace then-ill President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a puppet dictator. They want to pay the General a large sum of money to give a big speech at Doctor Burt's annual veteran's event in support of their fascist cause, but ol' De Niro just can't do it. Instead, he gives a rousing speech about the need to uphold truth, democracy, and freedom. Surprise! The ending of the film is nothing more than that video of A-list celebrities singing “Imagine” to us over Zoom .

Clearly, David O. Russell is another creative who saw Trump become the President, lost his mind, and then gathered as many celebrities as he could to defend one of the most agreeable stances in the history of the world: that hate is bad and kindness is good. It's the kind of lukewarm, on-the-nose take that elicited audible groans throughout the theater. Amsterdam wasn't an interesting murder mystery with a rewarding payoff. It was just the closest thing in American history that David O. Russell could find that mimicked the January 6 insurrection. "You don't get here without things starting a long time ago," Bale's Dr. Burt says.

Known as the 1934 "Business Plot," Major Gen. Smedley Butler really did give an address to a special House committee regarding his belief that a small cabal of wealthy businessmen was plotting a political conspiracy to install a dictator. He said that they were backed by a private army of nearly 500,000 veterans and that he was asked to lead it. The only problem? It seemed that no one was really interested in that happening. After General Butler gave his testimony, every party allegedly involved called the plot a complete fantasy. Nothing ever happened, the special House committee couldn't find any evidence of a planned coup, and an independent investigation by The New York Times concluded just as much as well. In a 1934 article titled " Plot Without Plotters ," Times journalists mocked that " No military officer of the U. S. since the late, tempestuous George Custer has succeeded in publicly floundering in so much hot water as Smedley Darlington Butler." Ouch!

But the "what-if" of the General's allegations describes what many believe could have also been the "what-if" of the U.S. Capitol attack, even though neither event came even close to accomplishing its goal. If audiences are going to Amsterdam to look for artistic takes on the current state of the world, "we need more love and kindness" is quite a layman’s response—especially from some of the world's most recognizable celebrities. As filmmaker Paul Schrader said at a recent New York Film Festival Q&A , audiences are simply just not as excited to hear movies work through the problems of our time as they might have been during the anti-war movement or social revolutions of the '60s and '70s.

Why? Maybe because those problems have still not been solved some 60 years later. Most people no longer go to the movies for “takes,” but to escape reality entirely. Hell, most people no longer even really go to the movies. There’s a reason why the leader of the Avengers—a superhero literally named Captain America—fought a big purple monster in space instead of giving oratories on why we should protect American freedom at all costs. You could argue that kindness is seemingly the message this world still needs, sure. But Christian Bale's character going into self-induced ecstasy because his two best friends are in an interracial relationship does not help the bare-bones wokeness similar films fail to make even just a little more nuanced. Even so, the down-your-throat optimism at the end of Amsterdam is certainly not the vehicle this film needed for any sort of entertaining climax. I've got plenty of other places to be preached to.

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‘Amsterdam’ movie review: A brilliant, busy, and bizarre David O Russel outing

While there has been some criticism about the plot being too busy and trying to say too many things, part of ‘amsterdam’’s charm is its “everything, everywhere, all at once” vibe.

Updated - December 18, 2022 04:48 pm IST

Published - December 17, 2022 01:17 pm IST

Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington in a still from ‘Amsterdam’ | Photo Credit: 20th Century Studios

David O. Russell’s latest outing, Amsterdam , seems like a reflection of his style — brilliant, busy and bizarre. The mercurial director behind critical and commercial successes including The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle , has reunited with Christian Bale for this conspiracy thriller/period drama/comic caper/social satire.

Written by Russell, Amsterdam , set in 1933 New York, is based on the Business Plot, an alleged bid to put a military dictator in the White House in place of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Narrated in part by war veteran and experimental doctor Burt (Bale), Amsterdam finds him in Europe at the tail end of World War I in 1918, where he meets fellow soldier, Harold Woodman (John David Washington). When the two are grievously injured, they meet the unconventional nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie), who according to Burt is “brilliant and nuts, but our kind of nuts”.

The three strike up a close friendship and move to Amsterdam. Valerie and Woodman start a relationship while Burt continues to hold a candle for his estranged wife Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough), even though it was her parents who encouraged him to enlist as medals would help him “fit in” with their snooty crowd.

Missing Beatrice, Burt returns to the US and gets into all sorts of trouble. Woodman follows Burt to get him out of jail and also to study to become a lawyer. Valerie vanishes without a trace. Burt and Woodman work together to help veterans with whatever medical and legal help they can.

Life putters on for fifteen years till Elizabeth Meekins (Taylor Swift) asks Burt to do an autopsy on her father, senator Bill Meekins (Ed Begley Jr.), as she suspects his death was not due to natural causes. Burt and Woodman served under Meekins in WWI. The autopsy sets off a chain of events that has the three friends uncover a gigantic, global conspiracy.

Amsterdam’s greatest strength is its ensemble cast with the period details coming a very close second. Apart from virtuoso performances by Bale, Robbie and Washington, there is Robert De Niro as the decorated general Gil Dillenbeck, Rami Malek as silky, silly Tom, Valerie’s industrialist brother, and Anya Taylor-Joy as his wife Libby, with tightly dressed hair and a huge crush on Dillenbeck. Chris Rock is Burt and Woodman’s smart-talking Army buddy Milton, Zoe Saldaña plays the quietly determined autopsy nurse Irma, and Timothy Olyphant is the hitman who inconveniently pops up at inopportune moments.

Michael Myers and Michael Shannon, as the part-time glass eye manufacturers (they give Burt a supply of hazel-green ones) and ornithologists, and full-time spies, are a hoot as are Alessandro Nivola and Matthias Schoenaerts as the detectives in charge of the case.

While there has been some criticism about the plot being too busy and trying to say too many things, part of Amsterdam’s charm is its “everything, everywhere, all at once” vibe.

‘Amsterdam’ is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar

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Home » ‘Amsterdam’ review: Despite a stellar Christian Bale, Russell’s latest is a massive misfire

‘Amsterdam’ review: Despite a stellar Christian Bale, Russell’s latest is a massive misfire

Amsterdam is a new period comedy thriller written, directed, and produced by David O. Russell. Released through 20th Century Studios.

At their best, David O. Russell’s movies will revel in their mayhem. They’re infused with the tenaciousness and/or thunderousness of their unsettled characters, and the director’s spirited filmmaking often complements their rambunctious energy. Certainly, Three Kings effectively captures the mania and the macho hysterics of an ever-senseless war, while The Fighter demonstrates the bullish bravado that allows us to champion Micky Ward’s hard-fought fight, both inside and outside of the ring.

But it was Silver Linings Playbook that most effectively accelerated Russell’s punchy and poignant style. Infusing a romantic dramedy with the heavyweight talent, personal sentiment, and funny ferocity that made it an immensely endearing and warmly entertaining two-hander. The notoriously nasty director finally found harmony amid all the zippy and zany cinematic chaos of his own creation. And it’s a high that he hasn’t matched since. American Hustle wasn’t without its charms, but it paled in comparison to his earlier, more singular work, and Joy proved to be too scattershot and unfocused to recapture The Fighter ’s concentrated, blue-collar appeal.

Now, seven years away from the lens, Russell is officially lost in the mess of his own manic madness with Amsterdam , a busy, bulbous, and too-bombastic mystery comedy. 

After following the madcap medical procedures of Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) — a World War I veteran who suffers from persistent pain — Amsterdam initially finds a fittingly fussy focus in this unbridled would-be pharmacist. Trying, often in vain, to discover remedies for the ailments of his fellow brothers in arms, Burt searches for a long-lost sense of peace. Physically as well as emotionally and spiritually. Debilitated by the constant and ceaseless turmoil of his war injuries, which include a missing eye and a back brace that gives him an arching, aching posture, Burt is searching for the medicine that will cure his abrasions, as well as various other afflictions suffered by his fellow veterans. Alas, each would-be treatment causes more headaches than remedies, leaving him in a constant state of longing. And it doesn’t help that his marriage has also proven inharmonious. 

The only true stability that Burt has found is in his pact with Harold (John David Washington), a fellow injured veteran, who summons him to perform an autopsy of their former general (Ed Begley Jr.). But the nature of the autopsy is a source of great distress. Under the request of the general’s daughter, Elizabeth (Taylor Swift), Burt searches for any abnormalities related to his autopsy, particularly as Elizabeth believes that her father didn’t die under natural circumstances. But in the midst of this investigation, Harold and Burt get framed for a murder they didn’t commit, and as they attempt to clear their besmirched names, they wind up in the renewed company of Val (Margot Robbie), who nursed them back to health in the Great War and hosts a few more secrets than Burt and Harold once thought. Particularly after their carefree time in Amsterdam — the place where Burt, Harold, and Val shared a trice companionship, and something deeper for the latter two. 

Throughout the course of Russell’s latest film, characters are searching for peace between wars. The lingering effects of the Great War fester like an open wound in a hustling and indifferent nation, as the threat of a second Great War rears its ugly head in the margins, teasing another long period of unending distress. We can only do so much to stop what’s set to come, but that doesn’t mean that we can lay idle and settle with the pain. Fascism isn’t always borne from hate. Sometimes, it can arise from the apathy of a wayward world, willing or able to overlook clear dangers in the interest of their own self-interests. Universal harmony may ultimately be a shared myth, but that doesn’t mean we need to quietly reject its potential.

There’s undeniable timeliness to Amsterdam ’s messaging, as Russell is clearly using this loosely fact-based account to reckon with our own unsettled and disinterested present and uncertain future. But in the process of telling the story of wartorn characters caught in the agony of their own turmoil, and the restless and bustling anxiety of a troubled society, Russell gets too caught up in his own neurotic filmmaking hang-ups. His unfocused storytelling can’t find the connectivity that saved his earlier, more digestible works. The elixir he seeks to cure the blues, the aches, and whatever other hardships that plague the man throughout this hectic movie are but a fantasy of their own. 

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There’s a curious irony found throughout Amsterdam ; it’s a film that is, at once, constantly in motion and yet seemingly stationary throughout. There’s a general franticness to the characters, as though they’re trying to discover who they are and what they’re about throughout Russell’s unstable filmmaking. It’s hard to know if Russell didn’t flesh out these figures enough, or if he allowed them to play with their dialogue, motivations, and origins throughout the film. But there is rarely a clear sense of intent and purpose for our principal players outside of Burt, who feels like the only personality with a clearly defined sense of self.

Though some viewers might be a bit critical of Bale’s heightened, exaggerated mannerisms, the sort of performance that some folks will bemoan as being “ticky” and “showy,” there’s always a great sense of being and physicality to his performances that are often totally unique and distinctive to their performer, and this one is no exception. Nobody gives a Christian Bale performance like Christian Bale, and it makes sense that the collaborators have stayed in close company since Bale’s Oscar-winning turn in The Fighter . For all their well-publicized bad behavior on set, there’s something to be said about how both of them can find beauty and fluidity in the disorderly. And Bale’s soulful, searching role in Amsterdam shows the actor once again playing into his innate curiosity as a screen persona. 

Burt is a man who musters through anguish in the hope of finding some sense of polyphony in life, while also allowing himself to bring that sense of long-lost comfort to the men who struggle in their own external and internal wars. Bale, in the pursuit of finding a man who can’t find what he needs to be content with himself, plays the part tenderly and fussily, the latter in an enjoyable way. He’s the only actor here who really finds the balance that Russell is striving toward, and it’s fortunate for the filmmaker that he’s at the center of the debauchery. Sadly, Bale’s divinity-seeking performance isn’t quite enough to salvage the film past its promising opening, particularly as Russell’s focus wavers and the film becomes more of a direct ensemble. 

Margot Robbie does what she can to make the most of her part, but it’s sadly too flighty and fancy-free to find stability. Additionally, Washington, an actor who can command great theatricality, is once again saddled with a role that makes him overly stoic and understated. He’s not yet at a point where he can command attention with just a passing gaze like his father, Denzel, and while he has proven himself to be a solid leading man before, this is the type of performance that can make you wonder what it is that he truly brings to the fold as a performer.

As for the supporting cast, it’s a hodgepodge of lost potential and amusing but uninvolving talent. Robert De Niro fares better than most here as a man who insists that he be known as The General, a charismatic public figure who will put his own life on the line in the interest of upholding the values of this fractured land. Likewise, Michael Shannon and Mike Myers favorably aid the movie as a pair of businessmen with ulterior motives, serving as two somewhat-reliable sources of competency amid the tremors of depravity found around them — a statement that proves to be as true to their performances as it is to their characters. And Zoe Saldana, bless her heart, does all that she can to make a completely underwritten role fizzle with mystique and subtle sadness. Her scenes are often a source of relief in a movie that’s way too bumbling to keep your interest.

Away from these noted A-list stars, however, nearly everyone else leaves more to be desired. Some actors, like Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matthias Schoenearts, and Alessandro Nivola, try to make something of their time on-screen, but their comedic personas lack consistency or even clarity. Rami Malek, Timothy Olyphant, and Andrea Riseborough, meanwhile, play people with intended purpose but often feel neglected for long stretches of the film. It can be hard to remember that they are in the movie, let alone that they play characters striving for depth. And Swift, in an eager, splashy cameo, fares a bit better than she has in other, similarly dour acting roles, but remains on a cinematic losing streak. At least she gets one big, memorable moment.

Away from the mismatched performances, it’s hard to fault Amsterdam ’s sharp visuals, dutifully provided by Emmanuel Lubezki, yet there’s something oddly immobilized by his camera work at times. A cinematographer who has often thrived on free-flowing photography, there are several shots here that prove to be oddly placid, as though needlessly constrained. Perhaps that’s the symptom of COVID bubbles and the woes of making a move in the midst of a pandemic, but the inconsistent visuals add to the general disarray of a movie that can’t ever seem content with itself or what it wants to be.

A better Russell movie would have excelled under these pressures, but the filmmaker, at this present moment, seems to be at a point of professional and creative insolence, unable to find the spark and sizzle that made his other, much better movies bloom. Amsterdam is the work of a storyteller who has finally crumbled under the pressure of his own finicky filmmaking, a man who wants to tell a story about finding consonance in times of trouble but only creates more woes for himself as he struggles mightily to make sense of his nonsense.

As such, Amsterdam represents a rare miss and a personal low for the filmmaker who has built a career from telling stories about men and women working against their internal or systemic hardships to discover their best, most successful, most independent, or ultimately truest selves. This is a movie with too few grace notes amid the overbearing noise and undefined symphony. What was once tumultuous in Russell’s work has now become tedious, resulting in a film about the lingering effects of the wars of our past and the wars to come that’s too caught up in its own internal combat to discover the compatibility that it seeks — and whatever compatibility it needs. 

Amsterdam is now playing in theaters. Watch the trailer here .

Will Ashton

Will Ashton is a simple man. He enjoys reading, listening to smooth jazz, eating burritos, a nice drink amongst friends and, of course, the art of cinema. His writing can be found at The Playlist, CutPrintFilm, We Got This Covered, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, MovieBoozer, Monkeys Fighting Robots, Heroic Hollywood, Indiewire, HeyUGuys and elsewhere. He's also, you know, a writer for hire. Reach out. Say hello. Friend him on Facebook. He's actually pretty nice — if I do say so myself. One day, he'll become Jack Burton. Just you wait and see.

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Marvel’s ‘deadpool & wolverine’: what the critics are saying.

Shawn Levy's R-rated film, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, hits theaters July 26.

By Abid Rahman

Abid Rahman

International Editor, Digital

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Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters July 26, but the review embargo for the film broke on Tuesday, and the early reaction from critics has been largely positive.

The third Deadpool movie, and first to be included in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the titular characters and is directed by Shawn Levy. The cast also includes The Crown ‘s Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova and Succession ‘s Matthew Macfadyen as TVA (Time Variance Authority) agent Mr. Paradox.

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Below are key excerpts from some of the most prominent early reviews.

In a m i x e d review for The Hollywood Reporter , David Rooney writes that dedicated Deadpool fans will love the in-jokes, which are cranked up for the third installment. “As bountiful as the action scenes are here, the jokes are the sturdiest part of Deadpool & Wolverine ,” Rooney writes, adding, “That’s because the plot is a lumpy stew of familiar elements, given minimal narrative clarity despite the reams of expository technobabble spouted by Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Paradox.”

“This is not an unmotivated crossover event,” writes Alissa Wilkinson, in her largely positive review for The New York Times. Wilkinson feels the endless jokes and goofiness works as Deadpool 3 is “self-reflective” of the corporate nature of comic book movies nowadays, but that approach has limits. “Now that this is an M.C.U. film, there are mandates. The stakes have to be absurdly high, having to do with the destruction or salvation of whole universes. More important, there must be corporate synergy,” Wilkinson writes.

Vulture critic Bilge Ebiri confesses he laughed during Deadpool 3 , if somewhat begrudgingly. “ Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t a particularly good movie — I’m not even sure it is a movie — but it’s so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it,” writes a seemingly exhausted Ebiri.

In a middling review, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian felt Deadpool 3 delivered everything a fan of the franchise would want, and the film makes it clear that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. “This is a movie which more or less orders the audience to stop taking any of the proceedings seriously, shattering the fourth wall into a million pieces with material about nerds saving their ‘special sock’ for particular fight scenes,” writes Bradshaw. “It’s amusing and exhausting.”

Vanity Fair ‘s Richard Lawson felt Deadpool 3 stuck the landing, despite being “a movie about acquisition and IP, housed in a mostly nonsensical dimension-skipping tale of regret and legacy (but in a funny way). … The film’s gaze is narrow and insider-y, but it somehow kind of works,” writes Lawson, adding, “ Deadpool & Wolverine is an amusing reflection on the recent cultural past, and a half-cynical, half-hopeful musing on what its future might be.”

In a rave, The Daily Beast ‘s Nick Schager felt Deadpool 3 “does give the MCU the shot in the arm — and kick to the nuts — that’s urgently needed.” Schager writes that the film “is more amusing and electric — more alive — than any MCU installment in years, and it impressively integrates Deadpool’s distinctive R-rated personality into the decidedly PG-13 franchise.”

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Hollywood flashback: when clint eastwood saved the day, box office: ‘deadpool & wolverine’ lands 6th biggest opening of all time with $211m, makes r-rated history, ben whishaw’s ‘good boy,’ johnny sibilly’s ‘great canyon’ to open vancouver queer film fest (exclusive), psychological thriller ‘the unraveling’ to get u.s. release from the horror collective (exclusive), ryan reynolds on stunning ‘deadpool & wolverine’ box office: i think it’s “the first four-quadrant, r-rated film”, robert downey jr. electrified comic-con, but will he energize the marvel universe.

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The essential guide to visiting Amsterdam

Here’s everything you need to know about exploring this Venice of the North—when to go, where to stay, what to do, and how to get around.

Why you should visit Amsterdam

More than 60 miles of canals. Golden Age masterpieces. Warm stroopwafels . Tulips and windmills.

Best time to visit Amsterdam

Spring: Wisteria explodes into bloom and nearby tulip fields burst into colors visible from space . Don’t miss the 24-hour celebration of King’s Day . The fun begins on April 26, the night before King Willem-Alexander’s birthday, with evening street parties in every neighborhood. On the 27th, families sell trinkets and toys in a city-wide flea market before carousing in boats and bars with hundreds of thousands of visitors in orange outfits and inflatable crowns.  

Summer: Embrace Amsterdam’s terrace culture. Head to an urban beach— Pllek is a hip spot for beach parties, while the 17 th -century inner harbor offers open-water swimming. On the first weekend of August, one of the world’s largest LGBTQ+ Pride events culminates in the boisterous Canal Parade .  

Autumn: Amsterdam hosts many fall festivals, like the five-day electronic music bonanza ADE in October or Museum Night in November. In mid-November, there’s another canal parade—this time for the arrival of Sinterklaas , the Dutch Santa, who is said to come by boat from Spain.

Winter: The Amsterdam Light Festival features dozens of glowing public art installations. O lliebollen stalls pop up all over town—these spherical doughnuts are special treats for New Year’s Eve. Museumplein is transformed into a lovely outdoor skating rink complete with its own Christmas market .

Lay of the land

The Canal Belt: This oldest section of Amsterdam is a UNESCO World Heritage site . Notable neighborhoods include the Jordaan , bustling with cafés and galleries. You’ll find many top attractions here, including the Anne Frank House , the Flower Market , and the charming but busy Nine Streets shopping district.  

North (Noord): Once an industrial shipping area, Noord has transformed into Amsterdam’s ultra-hip creative hub. Explore massive open-air graffiti and street art museum STRAAT or dangle over the city on Europe’s highest swing at A’DAM Tower .

East (Oost): In Amsterdam’s multicultural mosaic, trendy boutiques nestle between Middle Eastern delis (the baba ghanoush at Tigris & Eufraat is a local favorite). Canal-side Brouwerij ‘t IJ serves their award-winning IJwit wheat beer and other site-brewed suds in the shadow of De Gooyer windmill.

South (Zuid): Amsterdam’s wealthiest borough is where you’ll find the greatest art treasures. In Oud-Zuid , the Rijksmuseum , Van Gogh Museum , Stedelijk , and Moco all cluster on Museumplein . In De Pijp , eat your way through the Albert Cuyp Market , which has operated six days a week since 1912.

West: In Oud-West , head to De Hallen , an old tram depot now home to businesses including the Maker Store —a hub of locally made products—and Foodhallen , a huge indoor food hall. Right outside is the popular Ten Katemarkt . In the Westerpark neighborhood , head to Westergas , a former gas factory turned cultural hub for restaurants, theaters, and the TonTon Club —a retro arcade and Asian bistro.

Getting around Amsterdam

By bike: Bike is the best way to see Amsterdam, but beware of local cyclists with little patience for slow tourists in bike lanes. Check for bike lending at your hotel, or rent at MacBike or StudioBike .

By tram: GVB operates Amsterdam’s efficient tram system. The most convenient way to pay is tapping your contactless credit or debit card on the tram. Tap out when you leave or you’ll be charged the maximum fare. Or, purchase daily tickets and plan your route using the GVB app .

By boat: With a maximum speed of 6 km/h on the canals, captaining your own boat is an easy alternative to tourist canal cruises. You don’t need a license or boating experience. Mokumboot rents electric six-person boats at multiple locations.

By train: NS trains connect Amsterdam to Schiphol Airport and the rest of the Netherlands. Tap your contactless card at NS validation points to pay for your trip. At Schiphol, note that the validation point is at the top of the escalator, before you head down to the train platform.

Know before you go

Languages: Dutch is the official language. English is widely (and fluently) spoken; the Dutch consistently rank as the best non-native English speakers in the world.

LGBTQ+: The Netherlands was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, and Amsterdam has one of the most vibrant LGBTQ scenes in all of Europe. Reguliersdwarsstraat has been a thriving gay district for more than 40 years.  

How to visit Amsterdam sustainably

Outdoors: This is a city meant to explore by bike or on foot. H’ART Museum (formerly Hermitage Amsterdam) is a uniquely sustainable museum, exchanging excess heat and cold with the neighboring Hortus Botanicus to keep the art cool and plants warm.

Shopping: Hunt for treasure at IJ-Hallen , Europe’s largest flea market, and find fresh local foods at the weekly Noordermarkt organic farmers market.    

Dining: Funky vegan Café de Ceuvel embraces sustainable technologies like aquaponics and composting toilets. For something more upscale, dine in the greenhouse at Michelin-starred Restaurant De Kas , which has served farm-to-table meals for nearly 25 years.  

What to read and watch

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. Whether you read the book or watch the film adaptation directed by Josh Boone, this heartrending story of young love and loss highlights the best of Amsterdam. A bench featured in the movie mysteriously disappeared in 2014 but was quickly replaced.  

Ocean’s Twelve , directed by Steven Soderbergh. While you won’t gain any insights into Dutch culture, you’ll certainly get to ogle the city in this rollicking heist movie starring an impressive cast of celebrity A-listers.    

( For more tips on what to do in Amsterdam, see our Explorer’s Guide .)

Related Topics

• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
• MODERN HISTORY
• WORLD HERITAGE SITES

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